Lucasfilm Is Never Beating Those Accusations Of Padme Erasure After Revenge Of The Sith's 20th Anniversary Art

Brand-new art for Star Wars Celebration 2025 beautifully captures many of the characters from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, but the absence of Padmé Amidala disappointingly perpetuates a frustrating Star Wars problem. Padmé is one of Star Wars’ best characters, and her importance in Star Wars movies and TV shows has only become increasingly clear. Yet, there’s plenty to critique about the handling of her character, including how Padmé died and the removal of some of her key scenes in Revenge of the Sith.

New Revenge of the Sith art created by artist Jonathan Beistline for Star Wars Celebration 2025, while stunning, unfortunately continues the problematic trend of Padmé erasure in Star Wars. The art, which focuses primarily on the Jedi and Sith in Revenge of the Sith, doesn’t include Padmé at all.

Star Wars art showing the Jedi, the Sith, and General Grievous in Revenge of the Sith

Audiences were quick to catch Padmé’s absence in the art, and it didn’t take long for dissatisfaction with this choice to spread across social media.

\n”‘};

window.arrayOfEmbedScripts[“twitter”] = “”””;

\n”‘};

window.arrayOfEmbedScripts[“twitter”] = “”””;

\n”‘};

window.arrayOfEmbedScripts[“twitter”] = “”””;

Clearly, there’s plenty of frustration over this choice, and while it’s disappointing to see Padmé’s absence from the art, it also gets at a much larger issue with Padmé’s character in Star Wars.

Padmé’s Erasure Mirrors Lucas’ Biggest RotS Mistakes

Padmé’s Story Took A Major Hit In Revenge Of The Sith

Unfortunately, Padmé’s character has been mishandled for quite some time now, perhaps most obviously in Revenge of the Sith. The Revenge of the Sith deleted scenes, which some mentioned in their posts about this art on social media, revealed that Padmé had a major hand in planting the very first seeds of the Rebellion. These scenes were cut to streamline the story, though, which ended up being a mᴀssive disservice to Padmé.

Without these scenes, Padmé went from someone who refused to surrender even in the face of impossible odds—consistent with her character in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones—to someone who lost hope when she realized what had happened to Anakin. That choice has never sat right with me (there were so many other ways to kill her that would have reflected her bravery), and this art just confirms what I’ve long suspected. Padmé doesn’t get the recognition she deserves.

Natalie Portman Is The One Prequel Star Who Hasn’t Been Brought Back By Disney

Audiences Have Long Hoped To See Her Return, But That Hasn’t Happened Yet

Natalie Portman as Padme and Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith stare at one another.

Compounding this issue is the fact that Natalie Portman is the one prequel trilogy star who hasn’t returned to the Star Wars screen. Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor both returned for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Christensen was back again in Ahsoka. It also seems like both actors will be back again before long.

While, yes, Padmé died in Revenge of the Sith and can’t become a Force ghost, there are countless ways to bring her back. After all, Star Wars has never struggled to get creative when it comes to ‘ᴅᴇᴀᴅ’ characters (or actually ᴅᴇᴀᴅ characters). At the end of the day, I’m just disappointed to see that, in a movie that already lacks female characters so terribly, Padmé was left out. This Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith art really is stunning, but the absence of Padmé Amidala doesn’t feel like the right call.